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Cover data from the eight reclaimed areas and two reference areas are shown in Tables 1 <br />through 10. Shown in each table are absolute top layer foliar cover by species, frequency by <br />species, and relative top layer vegetation cover by species, all organized by <br />lifeform/provenance categories. In addition, absolute all-hit cover and relative cover based on <br />all-hit data are presented in these tables. All-hit data include first hits combined with <br />additional hits below first hits, thus giving an accounting of cover conditions for all vegetation <br />layers or strata. <br />Figure 1 graphically depicts the summarized cover data tabulated in Table 42, comparing cover <br />values to Mountain Brush and Sagebrush Reference Area standards. <br />Cover (plus the confidence limit) in the 1988 Wolf Creek, Wadge Pasture, and Wadge Pasture <br />'91 all exceed the cover standard set by 90 percent of the Sagebrush Reference Area. The 1985 <br />Wadge comes within 0.3 percent of meeting that standard. Cover (even without the confidence <br />limit) in the 1988 Wolf Creek, Wadge Pasture, and Wadge Pasture '91 areas also exceeds the <br />confidence set by 90 percent of the Mountain Brush Reference Area. <br />• Over the period of record (1987 to 1992), average vegetation cover in the reclaimed areas <br />sampled was highest in 1987 (72.1 percent), slightly lower in 1988 (70.9 percent), and <br />substantially lower in 1989 (48.4 percent), and then rebounded back to 60.2 percent in 1990 <br />and cohtinued upward in 1991 to 65.4 percent. In 1992, the average dropped slightly to 61.9 <br />percent (see Table 42 of this report and cover tables in Appendix 1 of the 1987, 1988, 1989, <br />1990, and 1991 Revegetation Monitoring Reports for the Seneca II Mine). This pattern was <br />also seen in the Sagebrush Reference Area where cover fell from 1987 to 1989, rebounded in <br />the 1990 data, continued to rise in the 1991 data, and then declined to approximately 1990 <br />level. In the Mountain Brush Reference Area, however, the trend of falling cover between 1987 <br />and 1989 continued in 1990 with a drop of two percent over 1989 levels, rebounded up over 7 <br />percent in 1991, and then declined in 1992. In the Wadge Pasture area, which had likewise <br />continued to drop from 1988 to 1990, the cover percentage rebound in 1991 was the largest of <br />all (over 13 percent). Although the Wadge Pasture cover declined in 1992, it still had more <br />cover than any of the ungrazed reclaimed areas, as well as more than the Sagebrush Reference <br />Area and almost as much as the Mountain Brush Reference Area. <br />e <br />